Monday
Mar. 1, 1999
Single Life Blues
Poem: "Single Life Blues," by Baron Wormser, from When (Sarabande Books).
It's the birthday of poet RICHARD WILBUR, New York, 1921, our nation's poet laureate in 1987-88.
HOWARD NEMEROV, who followed Wilbur as the nation's poet laureate in 1988, was also born on this date, in New York, 1920.
It's the birthday in 1914, Oklahoma City, of RALPH ELLISON, best known for his first and only novel, Invisible Man (1952), a story of a young black man who leaves the South for New York to join the civil rights movement.
It's the anniversary of the 1875 CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, one of the first civil rights acts which guaranteed blacks the right to use public accommodations, but it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883.
It was on this day in 1780 that PENNSYLVANIA became the first U.S. state to ABOLISH SLAVERY.
It was on this day in 1692 that Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne and a servant girl named Tituba were arrested for the practice of WITCHCRAFT in Salem, Massachusetts, beginning the SALEM WITCH TRIALS.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®